The art of furniture design and construction has evolved rather rapidly over the last half century. A variety of shapes and sizes of furniture have been developed over the years to provide comfort and decoration. Traditional furniture has been used to furnish homes, offices and other commercial establishments for many years. Traditional furniture is typically made in a number of different styles, using a variety of materials and finished with a variety of surface finishes. One of common features of the traditional furniture, however, is that it comes completely assembled from the furniture manufacturer, and once the item of furniture has been made, it cannot be otherwise modified or tailored to suit the purchaser or the environment in which it is to be used.
A recent alternative furniture trend in our mobile, modern society has been to the modular furniture, wherein consumers purchase unfinished furniture kits that contain all necessary pieces to assemble a piece of furniture and then assemble the furniture themselves. Such modular furniture systems seems to suit the mobility factor of certain segments of our society due to the fact that such furniture can be easily disassembled for storage and/or compact moving and then readily reassembled in a new residence.
There are several known examples of the modular furniture systems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,582,553 to McMurtrie discloses sectional toy furniture designed for children's amusement and intellectual development. The toy furniture consists of toy building blocks formed by panels that are fixed to skeleton frames. The blocks are interconnected by rubber pins that fit into a pair of sockets positioned on diagonally opposite corners of the panels.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,811,728 to Redemske discloses plastic modular furniture formed with individuals molded plastic base and storage modules having a plurality of grooves on the top surface thereon. The modular furniture further includes a plurality of shells for sitting, sleeping, storage and table tops having a peripheral ridge suitable for engaging the plurality of grooves on the base module. The base modules are connected together by a plurality of flexible clips that fit into a plurality of slots provided in each base module.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2006/0250052 to Davis et al. discloses a modular storage system and a method of assembling the same. Each modular storage component includes a first end provided with an integral connector and an opposite second end adapted to engage a second modular component at and with an integral connector of the second component.
However, all of these known modular furniture systems still suffer from a number of disadvantages and drawbacks. For example, the modular furniture has generally been rather plain in design and appearance and incapable of providing a variety of choices such as in furniture designs, material selections and the like. Additionally, the prior art modular furniture kits are usually constructed to form traditional pieces of furniture once assembled, and do not allow for any degree of flexibility in assembly, or the ability to be readily modified into other pieces of furniture for use in a house, office or other environment. Therefore, such known modular furniture systems have little or no utility apart from their use in the primary combinations for which they are designed and intended.
Furthermore, in many modular furniture arrangements of the prior art, assembly of the sections or modules requires complex securing or fastening devices, and thus often requires special knowledge or skills for assembling the components. Also, the various modules or elements are usually visibly connected rather than presenting a finished appearance replicating manufacture as a single unitary furnishing. On the other hand, if the fastening devices are obscured sufficiently to give the modular furnishings a solid unitary appearance, the individual modules cannot be easily separated or connected for alternative uses of the furnishings.
Still another problem encountered with many known modular systems is that such systems typically receive extensive use, which causes various elements of the system to become worn out or damaged, requiring expensive repair or replacement of large portions of the modular units. Particularly prone to such wear and damage is the upholstery, which receives direct contact and is more easily damaged than other portions.
What is desired, therefore, is an interior design system that is versatile, durable and relatively inexpensive. What is further desired is an interior design system that can be easily assembled and disassembled by a consumer, without requiring special knowledge or expensive equipment. What is also desired is an interior design system which is highly flexible and can be easily assembled into an extremely wide variety of interior design and/or furniture units that can be used in any residential or commercial space. What is further needed is an interior design system which is aesthetically pleasing and is available in a variety of finishes, textures and/or patterns that are easily replaceable and interchangeable.